Making Friends
by bhut
Summary: In the late Permian, Helen Cutter made an impromptu friend - and the whole series may've changed...
1. Making friends

**Making Friends**

_Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Late Permian, 248 MYA

The land of the late Permian lay out like one vast desert, greater even than the Sahara of the modern day or the dried-out Mediterranean Sea's basin in the future. Unlike the basin of the vanished sea, though, this desert was 'made' out of sand rather than salt, and as such it had more widespread wildlife of both plant and animal kingdoms, as Helen Cutter couldn't help but notice.

Conversely, though, since in this case the representative of the local charter of the animal kingdom was a rhino-sized gorgonopsid, Helen was considerably less than thrilled. The only fact that made this entire situation liveable was that the gorgonopsid wasn't in the best of physical conditions and didn't intend to charge Helen yet, despite their differences in size, strength and weight.

Nonetheless, Helen wasn't in the best of moods on this day: the late Permian was even hotter and drier than the late Triassic, the sand was more plentiful and got absolutely _everywhere_, and while she didn't have a diploma in meteorology, her experience told her that a storm was coming up fast, and she wasn't quite sure where she was going to find a shelter, besides – maybe – a hollow between two sand dunes or something equally shaky.

Unexpectedly, the gorgonopsid made a whining sound, rather like an oversized – a _greatly_ oversized – dog, startling Helen somewhat and causing her to whirl around in concern. Sure enough, the mammal-like reptile seemed to be preparing to bull rush her once and for all – but that wasn't what had alarmed the anthropologist turned time traveller: rather, it was the onrushing wall of sand in the distance _beyond_ the gorgonops, threatening to overtake them both.

Throughout her time travels, Helen Cutter had dealt with many animal threats – prehistoric crocodiles, spiders, killer whales, even meat-eating dinosaurs – and she managed to triumph over them, but an onrushing element was something else, something that no one could fight, but could only flee and hide...

And that was what Helen did, basically: she stopped confronting the gorgonops and instead fled to her left, where several rows of dunes formed a sequence hollows – a scanty shelter but still marginally better than being flatly out in the open.

Unfortunately, Helen had momentarily forgotten about her pursuer, and now was in risk to pay for that – the carnivore failed to notice the sand storm for the moment due to its own hunger and instead chased the fleeing human, gathering its strength for one final lunge...

...only to overshoot by a bit of distance as Helen dropped the bottom of the hollow and began to dig-out a crude shelter in the sand. Immediately, the gorgonops pounced once more, failing to notice the oncoming wall of wind-swept sand... and then it was upon it and Helen, slamming into the dunes even as the gorgonops tried to pin Helen Cutter down. And then there was nothing, but a wall of yellow-grey.

Modern times

"So, professor, what do you think of my thesis?" Connor Temple spoke up in a cautious tone of voice. "I'm basing it on how life on Earth was brought by alien space craft-"

Without much ado, Nick Cutter just threw Connor's 'theses' back into the waste bin, causing the young man to wince, and desperately think of a topic that could or would catch the professor's attention. Sadly enough, he couldn't find any.

Late Permian, 248 MYA

Helen got lucky, in a good way, perhaps for the first time a _long_ while. The sand storm hit her – and the gorgonops – low enough and strong enough to actually drag them along, rather than bury them in the wind-swept sand, and since it had also hit them early enough they were once more able to avoid the worst of the sand.

Finally, the combined body mass of the gorgonops and Helen had eventually slowed them both down enough to have them fall out of the sandstorm, as it had eventually dissipated... And speaking of the gorgonops, it was slowly lifting itself from the sand, clearly preparing to lash-out with its' massive and fanged maw...

Yet, now that Helen had a chance to see her pursuer closer than before, she saw that it was in a rather poor shape, almost emaciated, and was clearly favouring one of its forelegs now that the sandstorm was over.

However, the animal's maw was still studded with plenty of fangs, some almost as long as a rhino's horn and the look in its smallish eyes was both stubborn and starving. Then the gorgonops opened its jaws to take a bite-

-and Helen threw several of her fish pemmican supplies into that mouth. Instinctively, the jaws snapped shut and the massive throat gulped. Then those smallish eyes blinked, clearly confused about something-

-and Helen began to back away, slowly, towards the time anomaly that she could now see, clearly twinkling in the still-dusty air of the Late Permian.

Immediately, however, the gorgonops began to follow her, and this just wouldn't do. Reacting quickly, Helen threw another portion of her pemmican at the gorgonops, causing it to look away from her, and then she fled towards the time anomaly.

Snapping at the thrown pemmican bars and catching in mid-air, the gorgonops followed suit.

Modern times

"Let me guess, my job's got the least seniority, so it's got to go first," Abby Maitland told her boss, crossly.

"I'm afraid so," the older zoo worker replied, taking a look at the decisively non-mating iguanas in the reptile house. "Still, maybe we can find you a new position, maybe with the elephants..."

A dyed-through reptile fan, it took Abby a truly titanic effort of will to suppress the words "Keep looking". She reminded herself that she couldn't afford to antagonize anyone even remotely helpful to her at this point and re-phrased her reply into:

"Well, maybe a temporary position there..."

"Yes, yes, exactly!" her interlocutor spoke-up enthusiastically, clearly intent on avoiding a confrontation as much as she did. "Now why don't we, uh, step into my office and discuss your future in more peaceful conditions?"

Abby just nodded in reply and walked out of the reptile house.

Early Triassic, 242 MYA

Helen has become used to abrupt shifts in time and space that occurred whenever she would jump through a time anomaly, but after the monotonously sandy world of the late Permian, the lush, subtropical rainforest was a bit of a shock.

However, after several time anomaly jumps Helen learned to get very quickly over shocks, or she would've been eaten a long time ago. Therefore, she carefully leaned against a tree and began to observe any local wildlife.

And sure enough, the locals made an eventual appearance: vaguely barrel-shaped, middle-sized, pig-like... reptiles, their faces both tusked and beaked and their hides grey and bare.

"More mammal-like reptiles," Helen mused to herself. "Look somewhat like the small ones I've noticed in the late Permian, but quite a bit bigger – maybe their descendants..."

Like a striped lightning, the gorgonops sprung, startling Helen, for once. Fortunately for the time traveller, the massive carnivore chose a bigger, slower target: one of the reptilian herbivores of this time that Helen was looking-at earlier...

Now, however, instead of observing, Helen just stared blankly, as the starving carnivore took little time in slaying its chosen meal and beginning to consume it, eagerly. "Oh boy, I think I have a problem," she muttered, before the gorgonops interrupted its meal, trotted over to her, and cast a biggish slab of meat and entrails at her feet.

Helen blinked and stared at the gorgonops, who stared back, emitting some sort of a whining or placating sound in her direction.

Helen blinked again and looked down at the meat at her feet. She remembered, that back in the late Permian, this gorgonops had been the only representative of its kind that Helen had met in several days of travel...

"You know," she spoke to the gorgonops in – hopefully – equally placating and peaceful tone of voice, "this could the beginning of something interesting."

Modern times

Claudia Brown was in a bad mood. Her boss had given her the week off and here she was, stuck in some local bar, listening to some local braggart brag about his local exploits.

Wearily, Claudia looked around, seeking out someone better than her current interlocutor in order to keep her manners and leave the current company. No luck, all the current customers seemed to be pretty much par for the course of her current interlocutor.

"Bugger this," Claudia spoke-up suddenly, startling the aforementioned character, and just left the bar. She didn't want to be rude and her vacation was just starting, but this was not what she wanted.

As the bar's door closed behind her and she walked to her parking spot, boot heels clicking upon the pavement, Claudia Brown just took a deep breath and promised herself that this was the lowest point in her social life, and that from now on, things will get better...


	2. The affair of the train

**The affair of the train**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Early Triassic, 242 MYA

The morning dawned loud and clear, and the local dicynodonts were already busy rooting in the soil for mosses, tubers and roots.

"Ah, the prehistoric at its near finest," Helen told her gorgonopsid companion even as the latter chased away some of the local therocephalians away from their camp. "I wonder what shall we do today?"

The question was rhetorical, but train that came thundering and sparking through a time anomaly that manifested halfway between Helen's camp and local ravine was not.

"...I guess that answers my question," Helen said after a brief pause.

Modern times

Claudia Brown woke as usual – alone and to the sound of doves cooing outside her window. One may assume that these birds were fine companions to be awakened by, but after a while they get tedious, even annoying – and the fact that they were also loud enough to wake up the dead played no small part in that annoyance as well.

This time, though, Claudia had been awakened no so much by the doves, as by the telephone, which was ringing way too loudly for her liking. "Yes?" she spoke into the receiver. "Who is it?"

"Brown," came the all-too-familiar voice of her supervisor. "I need you to go and sort it out: there appears to be some sort of an incident in the metro..."

Early Triassic, 242 MYA

Inside the train there was absolute chaos, but so far Helen didn't smell any blood. There was smoke, though, and that was to be expected: passing through the time anomaly had fried the train's electronic systems and its wiring, reducing the train to a pile of scrap parts, essentially, albeit very large and compact ones, in this case.

"Who's in charge of here? Where's the driver?" Helen yelled loudly, as her animal companion sat on its haunches and emitted a loud, stretched-out howl. "Well?"

There was a moment of silence, some rather frenzied and disorganized movement, and out came a young man, looking rather worse for wear and therefore thinking slower than the majority of the train's riders. He was also about as likely being charge of them, as a fox being in charge of a hedgehog army – more of a scapegoat than anything else.

Fortunately for the young man in question, Helen never cared much for scapegoats, but always preferred to go for the real case – not the young man on this occasion. Instead, she sighed and looked him straight in eye.

"All right, here's what we're going to do."

"Yes?" the young man didn't appear to be too scared, actually, more like curious – very much more.

"We're going to sort your companions into an orderly queue, starting with those who are immediately with, you," Helen said calmly. "Incidentally, what time it was on your side?"

"Early morning," came the reply. "The rush hour hasn't started yet."

"Hurray for small mercies, then," Helen muttered, and was surprised, when the young man suddenly turned around and yelled loudly:

"All right, everybody! Form a line now, or else things will be very bad! Move it, people!"

Next to Helen, the gorgonopsid snarled.

Quickly, the people began to form a line.

Modern times

Murphy's Law, when you think about it, is always there, hovering around your shoulder, thought Claudia Brown. When you really need to get somewhere, and it is too early for traffic jams, up come road construction works. There _were_ a lot of them lately, to be sure, but still, it took her almost an extra half an hour to get there – to wherever the blood-awful scene might be.

Only it wasn't. Certainly, it was awful with plenty of emergency and first aid vehicles hovering around the scene, but there were a lot less hurt people than Claudia had expected, and that was good. That was very good, for no matter how callous Claudia felt lately, she still wasn't far down enough to disregard other peoples' lives as unimportant, and... why the majority's attention was attracted to a mismatched couple that was followed... what were these things?

Feeling more empowered than ever before, Claudia made her way towards the two strangers.

/

"Explain to me, why you wanted me to come?" Helen asked nonchalantly, carefully observing the sights and sounds of London at its most chaotic at the same time. "You had the situation well in hand."

"Yes, well," her interlocutor shrugged, slightly guiltily, "you're the best thing that has happened to me in a while-"

"_Pardon_?"

"Not like _that_!" was the hurried reply. "It's just that I've flunked my thesis, may be about to flunk my university career as well, and to see you and your, um, companions, was the most exciting thing that has happened to me in a long while."

"My condolences about the thesis," Helen nodded, remembering her own misadventures in the university. "What was it about?"

"Life on Earth and aliens," the latter admitted guiltily. "Not the best idea, in hindsight..."

"Excuse me," a blonde of roughly Helen's age came over them. "Claudia Brown of the Home Office."

"Connor Temple. University student," the young man replied. "Soon to be an ex-student, probably..."

"Helen. Just Helen," Helen began to speak when a terrible groan came from the deep within the now closed off subway, and her gorgonopsid emitted a howl. "That's not good."

"You can say that again," Claudia echoed her to Helen's surprise. "What has happened down there, anyways?"

"I think," Helen sounded rather sympathetic, to her surprise, "that it is something you need to see for yourself, I think."

/

Claudia most certainly did – but if she could've helped, she'd rather not. The subway was never a particularly savoury place (unless you're riding the train), but a broken down train and train tracks covered with copious amounts of rust – too copious for a well-run subway...

"Where's the glowing portal that started all of this?" Connor sounded even more confused than what Claudia felt.

"It sheared the train in two and vanished," Helen added dryly, "see?"

Stumbling (the other two had to steady her), Claudia made her way to the train's front – and it had vanished into thin air, leaving not even a trace of rust behind it.

"A glowing portal did all _this_?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes," Helen nodded, thoughtfully. "It must've – of course, I'm no specialist..."

"But you lived on the other side-" Connor said, startled.

"And I still wasn't able to make heads or tails of these time anomalies," Helen shook her head. "I certainly hadn't encountered one that had caught a train, either."

"But you expected that something like this would happen?" Connor sounded slightly accusing.

"No. But I was expecting something bad to happen – just on the general principles," Helen shot back, sounding more bemused than insulted.

As the other two bantered, Claudia became aware of some movement in one of the darkened sides – and as she shone her flashlight there, she saw that it was one of Helen's animals, harassing something else all the same.

"Um, Helen, what is this?" she asked the other woman.

"A dicynodont," the latter replied after a brief pause. "They're plant-eaters, and about as dangerous as domestic pigs are. One must've followed as here – are we going to keep it?"

The pig-like lizard creature approached Claudia and rubbed against her legs in a very cute way. "We're definitely keeping it," Claudia said firmly – she had been thinking about getting a pet for a while now – "and speaking of us, how would you two like to potentially gain employment at the home office?"

Connor and Helen just exchanged thoughtful looks. "I think," Helen said slowly, "that we're living in interesting times. And you?"

Connor nodded. "We're in."

_End_


	3. The case of the mosasaur

**The case of the mosasaur**

_Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Several days later, Connor and Helen were sitting in the Home Office's cafeteria, eating the local food and enjoying it.

"Fast food! _Expensive_ fast food!" Connor was saying cheerfully. "How much did I miss you!"

"Hmm. Warm, fresh, somewhat spicy. I can eat this, every once or twice in a while," Helen nodded in agreement. "Oh, hello there, Ms. Brown. Are you going to be joining our meal?"

"No," Claudia shook her head, regretfully. Though never a big fan of fast food, (there was the consideration of her figure to think about) she had to admit that Connor and Helen were having fun – without her. (_But that's how it always is,_ a voice whispered in Claudia's head. _Other people are having fun, and you have no idea how to join them in the first place. _Claudia ignored this voice, though lately it was becoming harder to do so.) "Sir Lester is summoning us for some emergency."

Both Connor and Helen made faces. Neither of them had been particularly impressed by James Lester upon meeting him for the first time, and it was reciprocated, most likely. Still, to Claudia's surprise, neither of them made a complaint (like more hardened Home Office workers could've done), but followed Claudia without a fuss instead.

/

As the odd trio were approaching Lester's office, Helen's gorgonopsid joined them, making excited noises. "There you are, fellow," Helen said with a clear appreciation in her voice. "How are you today?"

"He's feeling fine, and so am I," captain Ryan joined them before Lester's office. "A fine fellow he is, and so are his smaller companions," he grinned in a conspirational way.

Claudia was barely able to hold in a sigh. Captain Ryan and his men became assigned to Claudia and her impromptu team after the debacle with the subway train a couple of weeks earlier. Since then, the mysterious anomalies of Connor and Helen failed to manifest once again, and while some (primarily Helen) appeared to be actually relieved at that, Claudia half-expected captain Ryan to be resentful at the lack of action, but he wasn't.

Of course, Helen's animal companions may have been a part of that lack. The giant gorgonopsid, obviously, still followed Helen around and looked slightly askance at everyone else, and the dicynodont still trusted only Claudia, but the trio of therocephalians have bonded with Ryan and his men easily enough, and they were a clear indicator that the time anomalies did exist, at least at some point in time, pun intended.

"Ah, there you all are! I see that you're just as eager to see you as always," James Lester joined the impromptu throng outside of his office.

"James, stop being snarky and tell us why you have summoned us," captain Ryan replied instead.

"There are rumours of a giant sea lizard eating people at a swimming pool near the Thames River," Lester replied sternly. "Go there and do your duty!"

The other four people (and one mammal-like reptile) just exchanged looks and left.

/

"So, a giant marine lizard," Claudia carefully looked at Helen and the gorgonopsid, who decided to come along the foursome, and no one, not even Helen, thought to tell it no. "Have you met any when you met your friend?"

"No," Helen replied, sounding slightly confused. "The Permian wasn't the time of any giant marine reptiles, but I met some in the Jurassic."

"The Jurassic?" Connor choked. "But the therocephalians, the dicynodont – they're Triassic animals!"

"They are," Helen admitted, "but before I came to Permian and Triassic, I was in the Jurassic, and I saw marine reptiles _there_."

"What were they like?" Connor asked, awed.

"Let's see," Helen looked thoughtful. "There were two kinds. There were the fish-lizards – the ichthyosaurs, I think, correct?" she turned to Connor, who nodded in agreement. "They were like dolphins, never came ashore, but spent all of their time in the open sea. The other were the long-necks, the plesiosaurs, who were more like seals or sea lions, which means that they came ashore to rest and to bask in the sun. Neither sounds particularly lizard-like, I admit, and neither looked very interested in eating me, when I was around."

"Then maybe it's not from the Jurassic," captain Ryan spoke up suddenly, "but from some other time?"

"Probably," Helen nodded. "Connor, you have any ideas what else can it be?"

"Maybe a mosasaur," Connor said slowly, "but I'm not so sure. After all, Lester's statement wasn't very informative, was it?"

"What we need," Helen said with a sudden certainty, "is a witness. That would make things easier, I bet."

/

And there was a witness – a rather traumatized young woman being harassed by the police about the supposed disappearance of her boyfriend.

"Right," Ryan exchanged looks with the others. "Let's start from here, shall we?" He (followed by Helen and the others) approached the woman in question and said, rather politely: "Excuse me?"

"What?" the police officer glared at Ryan. "And who are you?" He visibly cooled down once he realized that Ryan and his people had a rather officially military look upon them.

"We're with the government," Ryan said before Claudia could, "and we want to ask the young lady several questions about the lizard."

"So you believe me?" the young woman perked up somewhat.

"That depends," Helen said, sitting down and smoothly pulling out a writing pad and a pencil, "on a number of factors, starting with the fact, what makes you think that it was a lizard?"

"Because it looked like one!" the young woman said very firmly.

"Really?" Helen asked, turning her writing pad around – she had quickly drawn a rather realistic-looking sketch of an ordinary lizard upon it. "You mean like this?"

"No!" her interlocutrix replied with a huff. "It had flippers for feet – almost like oars, and an oar-like tail..."

"Like this?" Helen had drawn rather sketchy-looking outlines of oars around her sketched lizard's legs and tail.

"Yes!" the young woman said. "Exactly! Well, not exactly but close enough..."

"So, Connor, what do you think?" Helen turned to the resident palaeontologist. "A giant marine lizard with flippers for feet and a finned tail?"

"Sounds like a mosasaur of some sort, and that's not good," Connor shivered. "They may've been related to lizards, but they behaved more like dinosaurs – carnivorous dinosaurs. Think a T-Rex that went to the seas, basically."

"Excuse me, but what are you talking about?" the police officer erupted. "This is an official investigation, this woman is a suspect in a murder criminal case-"

"One more thing," Claudia picked up her courage and peaked from behind Ryan. "Did you see that giant lizard? Would you say that it was big enough to eat your friend?"

"Yes!" the young woman said without hesitation. "And it was powerful enough to crack one of the building's underwater windows without really trying, you know, and they're made from somehow tempered glass that can resist underwater pressure..."

"And there is a cracked window she's speaking about?" Claudia turned to the head of the police investigation.

"Yes," he drawled out, clearly unhappy about it.

"That's all that we need to hear," Claudia said firmly, "and here, take this card. If the police get too overbearing, call this number and tell John Luso – he's a lawyer – that Ms. Brown of the Home Office has recommended him to you."

"Thanks," the other woman replied gratefully, but Claudia and others were already leaving.

/

"Now that that's over, how are we to kill it?" captain Ryan spoke as soon as they were out of the earshot of the police and their suspect.

"With great difficulty, if at all," Helen replied before Connor could. "First, though, Connor, can you please tell us something about the animal?"

"I already told you everything that we currently need to know beforehand," Connor said, visibly unhappy. "It's an alpha predator, basically a cross between a T-Rex and a modern killer whale, it probably didn't come ashore to breed or to sleep, but it could hunt in the shallows as well as in deeper water. Before the mass extinction, they were even coming into fresh water, so odds are our quarry is quite comfortable in Thames... and we're not going to kill it, are we?"

Helen looked thoughtful. "Probably not. I believe that it's almost impossible to get a kill shot in this murky water, and if we don't kill it outright it'll come after us and kill us." She looked at the others. "What? We're not going to be standing ashore and looking for it from there, are we?"

"No, what we need is a boat," Ryan said thoughtfully.

"Makes sense," Helen agreed. "I was thinking that we make a bait ball and when the mosasaur takes it, we stick with some sort of a harpoon that has a buoy attached to it to prevent the animal from diving. Then we capture it, or kill it, or something. How does that sound?"

"Um, if we attack the mosasaur on Thames in a boat with a harpoon won't it attack us back and capsize the boat?" Claudia said meekly and was surprised to see Helen genuinely surprised.

"I haven't thought of that," the other woman said quietly. "Well, there goes this idea. Who's got another one?"

"Maybe not," Ryan said suddenly. "Helen, you and Connor go and get us a bait ball – it's a much better idea than you give it a credit for. Ms. Brown, you're coming with me."

And so the little group parted ways.

/

"That was embarrassing," Helen muttered to Connor, as the two of them, flanked by her gorgonopsid, and followed at a discreet distance by a couple of Ryan's men, "I got to admit, I should've seen the flaw in the plan-"

"Eh, don't think about it," Connor said cheerfully. "It was still a lot better than to just hunt the mosasaur from the shore. Just don't think of yourself as unfallable, and that will be fine."

Helen just nodded noncommittally, failing to say that her oversight was born primarily by her supreme confidence in her ability of handling that mosasaur even in water and a capsized boat, than from anything else. "Right," she said instead, "let's go and get us a bait ball."

"And how are we going to do that?" Connor suspiciously asked.

"The usual way. We buy it. Gentlemen," she turned and faced Ryan's men directly, "while me and Mr. Temple are buying fish, can you go and buy us some raw meat for the bait as well?"

"Sure, ma'am," one of the soldiers replied, sounding slightly surprised, "what sort of meat?"

"Connor? Any suggestions?" Helen turned to the palaeontology student. "Did mosasaurs eat meat to begin with?"

"Yes," Connor said, looking slightly embarrassed. "They ate everything they came across in the seas, most likely. They ate bony fish, they ate sharks, they ate other marine reptiles, and they ate flightless aquatic birds such as _Hesperornis_..." Connor trailed away as a loud avian cry caught everyone's attention – and it came from a large, flightless, aquatic bird.

"_Hesperornis_," Connor muttered excitedly, and moved forwards. The bird emitted one more cry and dived.

"New plan," Helen caught Connor firmly by the collar. "First we buy fish, meat, and twine, and then we're calling captain Ryan and Claudia. Got it?"

The others nodded in agreement.

/

"So, Claudia, why're you so quiet?" Ryan asked the blonde woman. "I admit, you're never particularly loud, but today you're quiet even by your own standards. What's up?"

"I don't know," Claudia confessed, "I guess I'm just feeling redundant. Helen and Connor are complimenting each other quite nicely, and you're taking care of the rest. Where does this leave me?"

"Bull! You're just important as anyone else here!" Ryan shook his head. "You helped that poor girl out _and_ you saw the flaw in Helen's plan that no one of us could."

"Not even you?" Claudia couldn't help but ask.

"Yeah," Ryan nodded. "In case you hadn't noticed, my plan consisted basically of hunting the giant lizard from the shore – not the most efficient way of doing this, to be sure."

"But how _are_ we going to do this?" Claudia persisted. "If that mosasaur will capsize the boat, I mean?"

"Not this one," Ryan smiled assuredly, as the two of them approached a wharf with a rather impressive looking hydrofoil of a boat with the words and numbers "Super tanker 1969" painted on its side. "Oi! Wilder! Are you there?"

"Ryan," a man somehow similar to Ryan, with somewhat ill-fitting civilian clothing upon him. "What's up? Please tell me that it is a coincidence that you're here with a date when there are rumours of a sea monster in Thames."

"Sorry, Wilder," Ryan shook his head, sounding not very sympathetic at all. "But Ms. Brown and I need to loan your boat exactly to capture it."

"Someday, Ryan," Wilder muttered crossly, "someday..."

/

When the hydrofoil, piloted by Ryan and manned (or, rather, womanned) by Claudia approached the rendezvous place with Helen, Connor, and the others, everyone (except for Connor), was busy putting the bait ball together.

"Hi, everybody!" Ryan yelled cheerfully. "All aboard the "Super tanker 1969"!"

"What sort of a name _is_ it?" Connor asked, honestly confused.

"Not mine," Ryan said, somewhat cheekily, "this hydrofoil hydrocraft belongs to a mate of mine from the military times, and he owed me a ride on it. So, here we are." He paused and faced the other members of his team. "So, where are we going to start?"

"Well, due to a lucky encounter with an aquatic flightless bird we now know where the underwater time anomaly is," Helen confessed. "So, if we start upstream from it, we probably have a better chance luring the mosasaur into it, captain."

"What flightless bird?" Claudia asked, alarmed.

"That one," Connor pointed to a black feathery neck and a red, leathery, featherless, beaked head bobbing from beneath Thames' waves. "These birds lived alongside mosasaurs and were hunted by them. We were thinking that once we get the bloody bait ball into the water, the birds will come and eat it, and the mosasaur will come to eat both them and the bait, or whatever. What do you think?"

"Sounds like a plan," Ryan nodded thoughtfully, even as he reckoned he saw a large, somewhat armoured back of the marine reptile appear briefly on the water's surface. "Claudia?"

The Home Office member nodded. "Let's do it."

/

The bait ball was carefully lowered in the water, attached to the hydrofoil with a firm steel cable and a winch. As soon as it went into the water, several man-sized shadows, moving through the water as easily as if they were fish, went towards it, looking as determined as if they were torpedoes. Another, much bigger, completely different shape surged after them, coming from below, looking for all things like a giant lizard.

"And we're off! Slowly!" Claudia yelled to Ryan. "They've taken the bait!"

From his position at the steering wheel, Ryan nodded and began to move the hydrofoil forwards, relatively slowly. Since both the flightless birds and the mosasaur were quite fast in their own right, this slowness went none too slowly, actually, and soon the underwater time anomaly (Connor was keeping a watch for it with an underwater periscope) was in the sights.

"Time anomaly straight ahead!" Connor yelled from his vantage point even as he climbed further up the deck, away from Thames.

"Roger!" Ryan yelled back. "Cut the bait ball!"

Even as Ryan yelled it, he steered hard to the right. The bait ball, swinging on its cable, swung to the left, caught in the underwater current that was leading to the time anomaly. As soon as it was cut away from the hydrofoil, it went on towards the time anomaly, both because of its own momentum and the current. The flock of _Hesperornis_ followed the bait ball, and the mosasaur followed the flock. Within moments, the strange procession passed through the time anomaly, which fortunately snapped shut just behind the mosasaur's snaking tail.

"Well, that was easy," Ryan said cheerfully to the others.

Connor, Claudia and Helen exchanged looks and threw several remaining fish heads at him instead.

End


	4. Abby Maitland's new job

**Abby Maitland's new job**

_Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Shovelling elephant... excrement (but think, rather, of a four-letter word that isn't often used in polite conversation) wasn't the best job in the London zoo, and Abby Maitland... most definitely didn't grow to love it. On the contrary, it was only the lack of any alternatives that kept Abby going at it.

"I really must get myself a new resume," Abby mused, as she arrived for her seventeenth day of work at the elephant house. "Before I just go mad and become a housewife or something along those lines."

"Ah, Abigail!" Tim, Abby's work superior, made an appearance, startling her. "And I was planning on phoning you right now!"

"What's wrong?" Abby asked suspiciously.

"On the contrary!" Abby's boss told her brightly. "I just had a chat with one of my acquaintances at the Home Office: he needs a biologist who specializes in reptiles on his team and I thought of you."

"Me? Why?" Abby suspiciously asked. "You want to get rid of me that badly?"

"What? No!" her interlocutor shook his head. "I was actually thinking that it's a good thing: you're a good herpetologist, Abby, and you're wasted doing shovelling in the elephant house."

"And working in the Home Office?" Abby asked, unwilling to argue what was basically true.

"Come on! It's the Home Office! They're not going to have a crocodile, and you're good with the other reptiles," Tim replied firmly. "We both know that it is only your lack of seniority caused you to be reassigned in the first place! So, what do you say?"

"I'll give it a try," Abby nodded, giving Tim his point. "But I'm not quitting my work here right away either!"

/

Over two hours later Abby was standing in front of the Home Office building, looking vaguely nervous. Her uncertainty suggested that she might dress up a bit for the occasion – it was the Home Office after all – but her instincts told her not to, so she compromised: she wore practical clothing, but also more make-up than she usually wore, as well as earrings. Judging from the looks given to her by the somewhat odd couple standing before her, she did the right thing: fancy clothing would've been right over the top.

"Hi!" she said with more cheer than she felt. "I'm Abigail Maitland; I'm the biologist that Home Office was asking for?"

"Great!" the young man of the couple replied. "I'm Connor, a palaeontology student, this is Helen, technically she is an anthropologist-"

"-but in reality I'm more of the one who handles the practical end of things and Connor does the theory," Helen added with a slight smile.

Abby blinked. "Palaeontology? Anthropology? What Home Office is running here?" she asked.

"It's a weird tale," Helen explained, even as Abby became aware that another couple was approaching them, "and it began-"

"Helen! Connor! No time!" the other woman interrupted the anthropologist. "And who're you?"

"Abby, this is Claudia Brown and captain Tom Ryan – the other members of our team," Helen said smoothly. "Claudia, captain – this is Abby Maitland, our new biologist."

"Pleased to meet you!" captain Ryan said cheerfully. "Glad to have you on our team!"

"What he said," Claudia Brown nodded, smiling slightly, before turning back to Helen and Connor. "We need to go. There's been another weird death, and the police haven't forgotten our involvement with the mosasaur situation – Connor, that's the right name?"

"Pretty much," Connor nodded, "only, Ms. Brown, Abby wasn't briefed yet about what we do, so you might've come onto her a bit strongly."

"Oh. Sorry," Claudia coloured. "Uh, Abby, why don't you ride with me and I'll explain what we do?"

"Guess that means that I'm riding alongside you today," Helen turned to Connor. "Captain, think you can fit in another passenger?"

"Er," Connor looked a bit like Abby's brother Jack after she caught him reading magazines of a certain kind. "Can't she ride in the back with you?" he plaintively asked Claudia.

"Of course she can!" Claudia said cheerfully. "In fact, she's welcome to! I mean," she blinked, "that the guys-"

"-will be talking about manly things," Helen rolled her eyes. "Fine. Claudia Brown, you sweet-talked me into riding with you. Miss Maitland, come along. We've got quite a bit of information to share with you on this ride."

"Of course," Abby nodded gratefully, "and please – call me Abby."

"Very well. Sorry about dropping you off into the deep end so unexpectedly, Abby."

/

By the time they arrived at the golfing course, to see the golfer's corpse, Abby fell like screaming and running away – almost. The entire time anomaly situation seemed insane, and dangerously so. But conversely, shovelling elephant dung was sane: so mind-numbingly sane, that even insanity – no way people and prehistoric animals can travel in time – appeared to be quite attractive.

But then there was the corpse. There was nothing insane or unbelievable about it.

"Well, as a biologist who specializes in reptiles I can tell you that I don't know if reptiles have killed him, but they certainly ate him," Abby was the first one to break the silence and almost regretted it, as everyone else stared at her – not condemning her, more like... encouraging her?

"Go on," Claudia said kindly, when it became obvious that Abby was rather embarrassed to continue of her own volition. "Why reptiles?"

"The teeth marks," Abby continued, still slightly self-insecure. "Mammals and reptiles have different teeth _and_ jaw musculature. In particular, the teeth marks here are uniform, there's no difference between various sorts of teeth – that's the mark of the reptiles. The bones were gnawed on, but not bit in two or anything like that – that's another mark of reptiles; well, some of them..."

"And how big would they say they were?" captain Ryan asked curiously, as he began to examine the corpse with a greater attention than before.

"Judging from the size of their bite marks – they're no bigger than my hand, or rather yours," Abby explained. "I _am_ rather on the petite side, you know?"

"Fair enough," captain Ryan nodded in agreement. "At least now we know the size of the thing that we're looking for-"

"And the time," Helen said suddenly. "Connor, look in the sky, over that copse. I don't think that this is the Jurassic, either."

Instinctively, everybody grabbed the binoculars and looked in the direction pointed at by Helen. There, up in the sky, a huge flying reptile was soaring majestically.

/

"So," captain Ryan was burst to break the silence, "is that the guilty party here?"

"No!" Abby said urgently. "It's way too big! And it's toothless!"

"Too true," Connor echoed her. "This is a pteranodon. These flying reptiles were toothless!"

"And which ones weren't?" Helen asked suddenly. "I didn't see any tracks or blood spatters – whoever killed it flew away. Connor?"

"I don't know!" the latter shot back. "_All _of the pterosaurs from the Cretaceous were toothless! This must be a new species! Neat!"

"No, not neat!" Claudia shot back. "There are flying monsters in the sky, and how shall we catch them? With another bait ball?"

"I don't think so," Helen shook her head. "If this flying reptile is anything like its' smaller cousins from the Jurassic, it won't land, not even to feed on fish. We might need to deal with it in the air." A rather dreamy smile came onto her face. "I always wanted to fly an ultralight, you know?"

"But you don't know how to fly an ultralight!" Claudia said, almost shouting.

"But I always wanted to try!"

"That sounds like the beginnings of a plan," captain Ryan said thoughtfully. "Tell you what. I and Claudia will go and get us an aerosphere."

"Say what?" Connor's eyes budged.

"I meant an autogiro," the older man explained sheepishly. "I often get these words confused, sorry. Anyways, the two – sorry, the _three_ of you find the time anomaly and the other flying lizard that killed that guy, while Claudia and I go and get the autogiro."

"What for?" Connor asked.

"Noise! And size!" Ryan said proudly. "We'll scare the flying reptiles back into their time. How that sounds?" he asked, slightly more nervously than before.

"Let's keep it a plan A," Helen replied kindly, "and get to work instead."

Everyone – including Abby – agreed.

/

As she and Connor walked through the golfing grounds, with Helen trailing behind (perhaps to give them some room), Abby finally mastered her courage – or rather, found her ground – to start talking to Connor directly.

"So," she asked carefully, "how does this organization work?"

"We're hardly an organization," Connor said with a grin. "It's just the four of us – well, five, now that you're here – and sir Lester who is our superior back in the office. Or is he a peer? He's a knight, you know, so does that make him a peer?"

"I don't know," Abby said, feeling like grinning herself – for the first time in a long while too. "So, that's how you work?"

"I suppose so," Connor said, toning down his enthusiasm a bit. "You should've seen us riding that hydrofoil before! It was awesome!"

"Connor, please! Not so loud!" Abby wasn't sure where _that_ had come from but it sounded rather like an appropriate thing to say.

"Loud? I'm not loud! It's the neighbourhood that is quiet!" Connor protested and stiffened, when he realized just _what_ he had said.

Slowly, Abby and Connor looked around. They were standing in a copse that was full of small, black-skinned pterosaurs that were staring back at them with something suspiciously like hunger in their small, cold, bead-like eyes.

"Okay," Connor gulped. "This is bad."

/

As the two of them made their way to their car, the feeling in Claudia's stomach had intensified into something rather like certainty, even if there was nothing for her to be certain about – or was there?

"Ryan," she said firmly, "stop."

"Excuse me?" the latter asked, startled slightly. "Stop what?"

"I don't know how to say it – just stop!" Claudia said, sounding almost desperate in her urgency. That was actually something new, never before Claudia Brown had sounded anything resembling urgency, so captain Ryan stopped, almost instinctively.

"Okay, we've stopped," he said quietly. "Now what?"

"I don't know!" Claudia said desperately, "there's just a feeling in my stomach, and it's coming from over there..." she trailed away. A time anomaly, suspended in mid-air this time, was twinkling in that direction.

"...Okay," Ryan exhaled. "That does alter things somewhat: it might be hard, using an autogiro, to drive several flying reptiles through here-"

"No," Claudia shook her head. "It sounds stupid and unreasonable, but we're not going to get ourselves an autogiro. I don't know why, but we're not!"

Ryan opened his mouth, caught the resolute and desperate look on Claudia's face, and fell silent.

"Besides, we still haven't heard from Helen and Connor – and also Abby, I guess," Claudia added sheepishly.

Ryan just nodded, still looking surprised and worried for Claudia's behalf.

/

"Now what are you two up to now?" Helen said softly, startling Abby and Connor.

"Shh! Don't move!" Abby whispered desperately, thrusting her head upwards, hoping that Helen will see the pterosaurs as well.

She did, but behaved in a rather odd manner. "And what have we here?" she asked, cocking her own head in a manner similar to that of the flying reptiles. "Hmm?"

One of the pterosaurs moved to a closer branch and emitted a harsh, slightly hissing sound. Helen promptly reached into her backpack, pulled up a wrapped-up piece of self-made fish pemmican and threw it at the pterosaur at question.

Immediately several of the black-skinned winged reptiles surged over it, biting it – but with more curiosity than hunger or anger.

"Interesting," Helen said while looking at the pterosaurs with a clearly thoughtful facial expression. "Their Jurassic cousins were clearly fish-eaters. These ones aren't, I guess. Can you tell me their species, Connor?"

As Helen was asking Connor this, Abby realized that Helen was doing something else.

"You're leading us away," she said quietly.

"Yes," Helen nodded dryly. "I am. I'm guessing that they are the ones that ate that poor man back there?"

"They certainly seem to have the right size for it, and their jaws are powerful enough too," Connor nodded. "Shouldn't we be running instead?"

"I got a bad leg," Helen confessed. "Nothing that I can't deal with, but I don't run very well anymore. On the other hand, we're dealing with animals that can _fly_ probably much faster than even the two of you can run, no?"

"Hey, we're not leaving you behind!" Connor said firmly, even before Abby could. "Now all we need to figure out is where to run to..." he trailed away. "Okay, now even I can see why mindlessly running around would not be such a good idea, right, Abby?"

"Yes," Abby nodded thoughtfully, "and you never run around when dealing with wild animals either. It's an invitation for them to attack you, basically." She turned to Helen. "Ms. Brown was telling the truth when she said that you came from the other side, didn't she? You'd been really dealing with these sorts of prehistoric animals?"

"Well, when you add all of these months and weeks and days together, you do get several years," Helen admitted. "Claudia! Captain Ryan! What's going on? Is something wrong?" she asked, sounding worried than she had before.

"Well, we found the time anomaly, and came back to check to tell you that," Claudia replied, looking slightly shifty. Abby remembered that the older woman was supposed to go with the captain and get them an autogiro, but the latter was noticeably absent from the golfing grounds. "Did you find anything else, other than that big bird-lizard creature?"

"It's called a pteranodon," Connor replied, "and yes, we did. More pterosaurs. Small and numerous enough to have gnawed that golfer and with teeth the right size, too."

"I thought that pterosaurs lacked teeth," captain Ryan said, sounding slightly confused, "but never mind. How many of them there are?"

Helen, Connor and Abby looked at each other. "A big flock," Connor finally spoke. "A really big flock. Maybe it's more of a swarm, actually. I don't know. Abby, Helen?"

"What he said," Abby said after exchanging a look with Helen. "And-"

Whatever Abby planned to say remained unsaid, as the pterosaur swarm (or flock) chose this time to break from the copse and swarm them – or approach them with a very rapid speed at the very least.

"Everybody down!" captain Ryan helped, and miraculously, everyone complied – just in the nick of time. Consequently the pterosaurs missed them at their first charge, but they hurriedly regrouped, prepared to swoop down even as captain Ryan and his men were preparing to discharge their weapons... when Helen threw several more of her fish pemmican bars at the swarm (or the flock).

Instinctively, the pterosaurs snatched them and snapped at them, tearing the fish bars into pieces before emitting several loud, creaking, and almost complaining screeches and... flying away.

"That's where the time anomaly is!" cried Claudia Brown. "Maybe they're going home by themselves?"

Maybe, or maybe not. Rather, it appeared that the flock (or the swarm) was conversing within itself about what to do next, even as the time anomaly twinkled enticingly not far away from them...

It was the other pterosaur, the big pteranodon, which settled the matter from them. Like a winged version of the greased lightning, it swooped down at the smaller creatures, grabbed one or two of them with its beak and flew through the time anomaly back to the Cretaceous time period.

Screeching indignantly, the smaller pterosaurs followed their enemy, just as the time anomaly snapped shut.

"Yay us?" Connor said weakly.

"Yay us," Claudia Brown agreed.

/

"So, what do you think?" Connor said sometime later, as Claudia went to give her report, and the others were lounging in the cafeteria, "did you like working here or what?"

Abby Maitland took a deep breath. On one hand, for today she had to deal with a dead corpse, several prehistoric flying reptiles that came through a breach in time and space, and that actual breach in time and space itself. But on the other hand – there were no elephants or any by-products of their life cycle...

"Yeah, I did. Does that mean that I'm hired?" she asked humbly.

The cheering and assuring round of applause and good cheer that followed her decision was a clear yes.

End


	5. Of friends and dodos

**Of Friends and Dodos**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

On that day, nothing was foreshadowing anything extraordinary, as far as Abby was concerned. The wind was blowing, the sun was shining, the clouds were moving across the sky, no time anomalies or anything bizarre seemed to be appear on the horizon – in short, it was shaping up to be a very good, normal day.

"Hey, Abby. We just got several new Brown's automatic rifles," captain Ryan greeted her when the young woman came to the Home Office. "Want to see us test them?"

…Well, a normal day for someone who worked for the Home Office's time anomalies' field team, at any rate.

"Why not?" Abby shrugged in agreement. "Unless more flying reptiles or whatever make an appearance, we probably have free time-"

"Am I interrupting something?" Helen spoke up, looking rather mischievous. "Eh?"

"No," captain Ryan replied dryly, "you haven't. What's up? Did Connor or Claudia send you to tell us something?"

"No," Helen shook her head. "Connor actually went to Lester with a couple of resumes – apparently, his friends or neighbours or both or something want in."

The other two just blinked. "You say that someone else wants to work here?" Abby said incredulously. "Make no mistake, it is a good job, it just takes a certain presence of mind – you think they got it?"

"Lorraine certainly thinks so!" Claudia joined the discussion. "She's Lester's secretary," she added, seeing that the others were looking somewhat confused. "She thinks that Connor's friends just might get internships here under her supervision."

"O-oh!" Abby replied, finally understanding. "And what does – sir Lester think about it?"

"You want to go and find out?" Claudia asked, looking rather enthusiastic (and slightly mischievous) about it.

The others exchanged looks.

"Oh, yes!"

/

"What do you mean, they want to work here?" the voice of James Lester reached loudly all over their floor. "This is Her Majesty's government here, not some temporary jobs agency! This is beyond- beyond-"

"But, sir Lester," Connor by now was confident enough to argue with his superior, no matter how slightly, "it's hardly a secret what we're doing around London, we just aren't common-place enough to be on the news yet! Besides, they're my friends, what shall I tell them?"

"Tell them they're fired!" Lester snapped.

"Excuse me?"

"Or that they would be rather hired as Argonauts than here! Frankly, judging from their resumes-"

"Sir Lester!" Lorraine suddenly spoke up, seeing how Connor was ready to break down. "That's unreasonable! There's nothing in their resumes that suggests that they can't work here-"

"This is a government facility! We can't just hire people from the street…" Lester paused and gave both Connor and Lorraine hard, hard looks. "Fine. We'll give them temporary internships. But if they screw up, they'll be fired - as in given one last cigarette and fired. Got it?"

"Yes, yes, I got it," Connor said in that sort of a happy tone of voice that implied that it all went clear over his head, and took off.

"And where's he going?" Abby asked no one in particular.

"To his friends," Helen explained cheerfully. "They're waiting in the parking lot."

Claudia stared. "Say what?"

Helen explained.

/

Connor's friends… Abby wasn't sure what to make of them. There was just something about their presence that made her feel uneasy, but for the love of her Abby couldn't figure out what.

"There's something about this that I don't like, but they look harmless," she muttered to Claudia and Helen. "Is it just me?"

"No, it's not just you," Claudia muttered back. "This day, I don't know, it just has an odd feel to it. Sort of like what has happened on the golfing course, only it's not the same."

"Ah, your intuition is developing. How interesting," Helen all but cooed.

Abby eyed the older women warily. At times she thought that something was developing between the two of them, but whether it was romance or just friendship, she wasn't sure. (On the other hand, whatever she and captain Ryan had was friendship, pure and simple, and it was strange. Nice to have, but still strange.)

"What are you talking about?" Claudia asked, indignantly.

"I mean," but whatever Helen meant to say remained unsaid, as a time anomaly appeared. Right in the Home Office, as well. And several turkey-like, feathered creatures came barrelling straight out of them.

"Dodos!" one of Connor's friends (the shorter and fatter one) yelled almost delightfully. "Dodos!"

/

For creatures whose name all but became the byword for stupidity or idiocy (Claudia wasn't exactly sure which), the dodos were proving to be simply nowhere as dumb as their reputation made them to be. Nor were they as slow as they appeared to be. Rather, they ran around pretty quickly, flailing around their smallish wings (that were still capable of delivering some very painful whacks) and snapping their actually not too small beaks.

"Ouch!" Claudia heard somebody exclaim – apparently the dodos were able to bite somebody after all. She turned in the direction of the sound and sure enough, the taller of Connor's two friends (though something made Claudia wonder just for how long they_ will_ remain friends) was rubbing his hand that had a rather nasty bite on it and glaring at the dodo (captured by Connor's other friend) in a very ugly manner.

"Excuse me," she interjected calmly (the Home Office had enough trouble with the feathered dodos to add problems with the non-feathered ones on top of it), "but you're Connor's... roommates, right?" (She couldn't even call them his friends; she just couldn't for some reason.) "Come on then, let's get you to the medical wing."

"Thank you, ma'am," the one with the glasses said gratefully. His friend just glared.

_There's going to be trouble with this one, I just _know_ it._

/

It took them what appeared to be the better half of the day, but at long last all of the dodos were driven through the time anomaly... that didn't close. "Fancy that!" proclaimed captain Ryan, as everyone, tailed by Helen, snuck a peak through it. "That's... well..."

The Home Office group were standing on a wide, almost endless, green field or meadow, where several time anomalies, beating and pulsing almost in tandem, were located.

"Wow! What would happen if we were to go through one of them?" Connor asked.

The question was largely a rhetorical one, but Helen's answer was anything but. "Well, provided that it won't lead us to a time that's too far in the past or the future for us to survive, we'll find ourselves in a land of wonder, no doubt, that's strange, wonderful, terrible, and it isn't home. And if we stay there for too long, or wander too far, the time anomaly will be gone, and we'll have to travel home via a journey that'll make Homer's _Odyssey_ positively child-friendly and picnic-like."

"...You know, because you've been there," Claudia said after a brief silence.

"Yes," Helen nodded solemnly. "Connor's actually helping me make a picture-book about my travels. I'll probably have it published as children's fiction of some sort, and... we'll see what'll happen next. Want to see it?"

The ploy was hollow, to say the least, but among other things it provided an excuse to leave. "Sure," captain Ryan nodded, "but one day we will be back."

And then they were gone.

/

Back inside the Home Office (the time anomaly vanished as soon as they returned to their time and place, they were met by a frantic Lorraine.

"You're back! Hallelujah!" she said in a clear relief. "What had happened to you there? You've been absent for the better part of a day!"

"What?" Connor's eyes budged. "But we've been there what? Five, seven minutes tops!"

"Time runs differently on two sides of a time anomaly, that's why it's an anomaly, aside from other reasons," Helen explained helpfully. "Hallelujah indeed that all that it cost us this time was just some time, and not even a full twenty-four hours worth." She paused and turned to Lorraine. "What has happened while we were gone?"

"Not much," Lorraine said, quietly. "Connor, one of your friends – the one who was bitten by a dodo – was sick, so he's in the hospital right now."

"What?" Connor yelled, before turning to the others. "Ah, Ms. Brown, I haven't got my driver's license yet-"

"Yes, Connor, I'll take you," Claudia said with a small, sad smile. "Let's go." And they were gone.

"Those two friends of Connor – I don't think he'll be friends with them for too long," Lorraine said sadly. "In fact, I'm not sure that the two of them will remain friends for too long now. People, some people just drift apart, you know?"

"I know," Helen nodded, rather hollowly, caught within her own thoughts. "Poor Connor. Think we should go there and back him up, when it goes wrong?"

There was a quick, almost frantic show of agreement, and everybody left, left to support Connor, just in case something did go wrong.

And it had.

But that is another story.

End


End file.
